From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

By Carmen Sylva

From Memory's Shrine is an autobiography by writer and first Romanian queen Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise of Wied. She had been the princess consort of Romania since her marriage to then-Prince Carol on 15 November 1869. Contents: "I. Clara Schumann 13 II. Grandmamma 30 III. Ernst Moritz Arndt 60 IV. Bernays 69 V. Two Old Retainers 85 VI. Fanny Lavater 97 VII. Bunsen 119 VIII. Perthes 139 IX. A Faith-Healer 151 X. Mary Barnes 175 XI. The Family Valette 181 XII. Karl Sohn, the Portrait-Painter 192 XIII. Weizchen 203 XIV. A Group of Humble Friends 217 XV. My Tutors 232 XVI. Marie 243 XVII. My Brother Otto 251."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 4064066137076

Book preview

Carmen Sylva

From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066137076

Table of Contents

FROM MEMORY’S SHRINE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I CLARA SCHUMANN

CHAPTER II GRANDMAMMA

CHAPTER III ERNST MORITZ ARNDT

CHAPTER IV BERNAYS

CHAPTER V TWO OLD RETAINERS

CHAPTER VI FANNY LAVATER

CHAPTER VII BUNSEN

CHAPTER VIII PERTHES

CHAPTER IX A FAITH-HEALER

CHAPTER X MARY BARNES

CHAPTER XI THE FAMILY VALETTE

CHAPTER XII KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT-PAINTER

CHAPTER XIII WEIZCHEN

CHAPTER XIV A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS

CHAPTER XV MY TUTORS

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII MY BROTHER OTTO

FROM

MEMORY’S SHRINE

Table of Contents

[image not available]

INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

It

has been said by a well-known German novelist of our day in one of his most recent works that as we approach our fiftieth year our hearts nearly always resemble a grave-yard, thronged with memories, a far greater share of our affection belonging by that time to those who are already at rest beneath the earth than may be claimed by those still left here to wander with us on its surface. This remark of Rosegger’s is above all true of such of us as have been accustomed from our earliest youth to stand mourning beside new-made graves, and see our nearest and dearest prematurely carried off in Death’s relentless grasp.

It is in this cemetery of mine, sacred to the memory of all whom I have loved and lost, that I would linger this day, holding commune as is my wont with my beloved dead; but for once I would not that my pilgrimage were altogether a solitary one. As in thought I stand before each grave in turn, gazing with the spirit’s eyes on the dear form so clearly recognisable under the flowers I have strewn above it, I would fain retrace for others than myself every line of the features I know so well, that all you to whom I speak may learn to know and love them also. Even the best are all too soon forgotten in this busy, restless world, but it may be that my words, coming from the depths of my heart, will strike a responsive chord in the hearts of those who read them, and kindling in their breasts a feeling like my own, will keep alive for a little space these figures I call back from the shadowy Past. My aim will be achieved if I can but convey to other souls something of the impression my own received from the noble and beautiful lives with whom I have come in contact, and which my pen will now strive with the utmost fidelity to portray.

I am about, then, to throw open the sanctuary I have so long jealously guarded from the world—the private chapel within whose niches my Penates are enshrined. Those to whom I pay a constant tribute of love and gratitude were either the idols of my early youth or the friends of riper years. I shall try to show them as they appeared to me on earth, in every varying aspect, according to season and circumstance, and to the changes of my own mood and habits of thought during the different stages of my mental development. To my youthful enthusiasm many of them became types of perfection, in whom I could discern no human weakness—to have known them was my pride and happiness. All that was best in myself I attributed to their influence, and their presence has never ceased to dwell with me since they have been removed to higher spheres. They, on whose lips I hung with such rapt attention, drinking in every word that fell from them, very possibly paid but small heed to the silent, earnest-eyed child, nor guessed how fondly those lessons of wisdom and holiness were being treasured up in that little heart. For to none of us is it ever given to know the precise hour in which our own soul has spoken most clearly and forcibly to another soul, nor to fathom the full import of the message with which we are entrusted towards our brethren. We cast our bread upon the waters of life, not knowing its destination, and the seed we scatter with a lavish hand is borne in all directions by the winds to take root it may be in the soil we should have deemed least fit for culture. Children often observe more keenly and reflect more thoughtfully than their elders would give them credit for. We need but look back each of us to our own childhood, in order rightly to understand how deep and lasting are the impressions then received, and how they may colour the whole after-current of our lives. Now, as I recall those days, I feel myself, as it were, suddenly transported into the midst of an enchanted garden, among whose rare and luxuriant blossoms I would fain gather together the fairest specimens for a garland. But they spring up around me in such wild profusion, and their beauty is so radiant, their colours so rich, their fragrance so intense, that I am embarrassed in my choice, and only stretch out my hand timidly and hesitatingly towards them, fearing lest in plucking I should injure the least of these fairest works of Creation. Well, indeed, may I feel diffident as to my own skill in selecting and grouping them aright.

Yet, though the skill be lacking, goodwill and sincerity I may at least claim to bring with me in full measure to my labour of love. It is no mixture of Fact and Fiction I would here compile, nothing but the simple, unadorned Truth, things I have myself seen and heard. Not that I would have these pages resemble memoirs, in the ordinary sense of the word, for what are memoirs at the best but a superior sort of gossip—when they are not, that is to say, simply gossip of a despicable kind! No mysteries will be here unveiled, no scandalous secrets dragged to light. I do but propose to draw back the curtain from before the picture-gallery within whose sacred precincts I have until now allowed no other footsteps than my own to stray, so that all who will may render homage with me to the moral and intellectual value of the lives these portraits strive to commemorate.

CHAPTER I

CLARA SCHUMANN

Table of Contents

It

is but fitting and natural that I should open with this revered name the series of my reminiscences, as my childish recollections hardly go further back than the date of the first time I heard her, when I was only eight years old, at my very first concert in Bonn. That was so great an event in my life, and I was so impatient for the evening to come, that I hardly know how I got through the whole day that preceded it. Seldom has any day since appeared so interminably long. Still, the evening did come at last, and I remember accompanying my mother to the concert-room, into which she was wheeled in her invalid-chair, for, although still quite young, she had been for many years in ill-health and unable to walk. But whether I walked by her side, or how I got there, I no longer know, for I have only a sort of confused recollection of having been brought there without any effort on my own part, as though I had been borne thither on wings! My first concert! My heart still beats loud when I think of it.

It was a big, crowded room we entered. But I did not see the people. I paid no attention to anybody. I saw nothing but the estrade on which the piano was placed. Our seats were so far to the right that, small as I was, I should not have seen the pianist at all had I not obtained my mother’s permission to establish my diminutive person in the passage left between the two rows of seats, where I had a full view of the keyboard. I was all eyes, all ears, quivering from head to foot with intense nervous expectation. At last Madame Schumann came in, and, advancing swiftly to the instrument, sat down before it. She was dressed in black velvet, with a single deep-red rose stuck low behind one ear in her dark hair, which was very thick and inclined to curl, and which she wore plainly parted and flat to the head, instead of having it according to the fashion of those days twisted to stand out on each side of the face. What struck me at once was something harmonious in her whole appearance; it always seemed to me afterwards as if her dress must have been crimson too, to match the rose in her hair. Her hands were small, firm and plump, the touch full, healthy and vigorous, almost of virile strength. I carried the rich, clear tones away with me, to ring in my ears for long afterwards. But that which went straight to my heart, and haunted me longer still, was the pathetic look in her eyes.

Leaning a little forward, bending as it were over the keys, as if to be alone with her own music and the better to hear herself, apparently utterly oblivious of the rest of the world, the player kept her magnificent, melancholy eyes persistently cast down. But I could see those wonderful eyes, and her sadness impressed me so much that it almost spoilt my pleasure in the music, for I was wondering all the time how it could be that anyone who played so divinely could all the same look so unutterably sad. I did not then know her unhappy story; I had not heard how her husband had gone out of his mind, leaving her penniless, with a large family to provide for, and that it was, indeed, to provide her children’s daily bread that she thus played in public. It did not occur to me that anyone could be poor who wore a velvet dress. Besides it was impossible to my childish mind to conceive that any artist could be poor. On the contrary, I looked upon them all as being fabulously rich, as having all the treasures of the universe at their disposal. Those beliefs were natural to my age, for in childhood Romance is Reality, and Reality a very poor sort of Romance! Have we not been all of us the heroes of our own fairy-tales?—either Aladdin or Robinson Crusoe, and more often Crusoe on his island than Aladdin in the magic cave, since at that time of life the riches of this world appeal very feebly to our imagination.

But for the pathetic expression of a pair of dreamy eyes my mind was sufficiently receptive, sorrow and heartache being already only too familiar to me. My mother, as I have mentioned, was at that time an invalid, my younger brother had been a sufferer from his birth, and my father was slowly dying of consumption. The daily spectacle of pain and illness may well open a child’s eyes to the expression of suffering in other human faces. But as I was always a very reserved child, accustomed to keep all puzzling problems to myself and brood over them in silence, I asked no questions, and consequently learnt nothing about my new idol nor even suspected the existence of a domestic tragedy. Schumann’s works were at that time a sealed book for me, with the exception of a few simple pieces, intended for children. And children’s pieces were not what I cared about. I only wanted Beethoven!

After that I did not see her again for many years—till I was grown up, a girl of twenty, in St. Petersburg. I was just recovering from an illness, and it was whilst I was still so weak that I could hardly stand, that I had the sudden news of my dear father’s death. The blow was such an overwhelming one, I felt at first as if everything in life were over for me, and that I should never take pleasure in anything again. And just then Mme. Schumann arrived with her daughter Marie. The Grand Duchess Hélène, in whom so many artists had found a true friend and enlightened patroness, hastened to place rooms in her palace at the disposal of the celebrated pianist. So mother and daughter, to my unspeakable joy and consolation, took up their abode with us for seven weeks, and were lodged in the suite of apartments just above my own. Whenever she was going to practice, Mme. Schumann would send word to me, and then I would manage to drag myself upstairs, and let myself be propped up by cushions in a corner of the room, where I could listen undisturbed. It was as if I were being slowly awakened from a deathlike trance, and being brought back to an interest in life again by the strains of that exquisite music. Better still, my aunt very soon arranged for me to take some piano-lessons of this great artist, and these mark quite an epoch in my life. They were certainly quite exceptional

[Image not available: By kind permission of Messrs. Breitkopf & Hartel, 54 Great Marlborough Street, London, W. Madame Schumann]

By kind permission of Messrs. Breitkopf & Hartel, 54 Great Marlborough Street, London, W.

Madame Schumann

lessons in every way, altogether unlike everything else of that nature, for at first I was almost too feeble to hold my fingers on the keys. But my dear professor soon found something for me, to which my strength was just equal—Schumann’s delicious Scenes of Childhood—and from these we went on little by little to higher flights. But it was not alone for the progress in my music that these hours were of inestimable value; I look back to them as having left their mark on the whole course of my life ever since, for I was roused from my own lethargy and despondency by learning the trials through which my new friend had passed. This noble-minded woman could, indeed, have hit upon no better lesson in fortitude than that which was contained in the simple story of her own youth, as calmly and unaffectedly she told her young companion of the catastrophe which had wrecked her life. It was, indeed, a revelation to me, this glimpse into the workings of another soul, whose sufferings I had never even suspected. The simple words in which the tale was told wrung my heart more than any studied eloquence could have done, and I blushed to think that I had dared to wrap myself up in my own sorrow, as if I were the only sufferer in the world. I learnt from her how much another had borne silently, uncomplainingly, and I understood how duty may often call upon us to take up our burden and resume the daily struggle before our wounds are yet healed, instead of giving ourselves up to the luxury of grief. I will try, as far as I can, to give Clara Schumann’s story in her own words, as she told it to me, in the long conversations we held in those unforgettable hours. She spoke of her childhood, for her troubles began early; her parents were separated, and the little girl never knew a really happy home. In spite of the slight deafness, with which she was troubled from her earliest years, her father insisted on having her trained as a musician, and she was prepared to make her appearance in public when she was only twelve years old. It was all very hard, she related, for I adored my mother, whom I hardly ever saw. I remember my father once taking me to Berlin to pay her a visit, and the way in which he flung the door open, with the words: ‘Here, madam, I have brought your daughter to see you!’ Yes, those were hard circumstances for me, and the more so, as he had married again, and my stepmother was anything but kindly disposed towards me.

There was a pause, and her expression changed as she went on to tell of her love-idyl and early marriage. This was a dreamy look in her eyes, and an arch smile on her lips that made her face quite young again, while she spoke of those bygone days of short-lived happiness.

It was when I was only fourteen, she said, that Robert Schumann first became a visitor at our house. He was then just eighteen years of age, and very soon we two young people had fallen in love, and even become secretly engaged. Secretly, I need hardly say, so frightened was I of my father, who, for his part, had constantly announced that he had his own quite fixed plans for my future.

Again she paused, and seemed for a moment plunged in memories of the past. I did not disturb her with questions, but waited for her to go on with her narrative, and it was with merriment once more rippling over her face that she related some of the more amusing scenes in the drama.

"Four years later it had come to open war between my affianced husband and my father, and I remember having to appear between them in the court of law, in which the struggle for my person was being decided. Schumann proved to the entire satisfaction of the court that he was of age, and perfectly well able to support a wife, whilst my father, having no just ground for his refusal, simply loaded him with insult. The decision was accordingly given in our favour, and we were legally authorised to become man and wife. At this my father’s rage literally knew no bounds. Had he not often sworn that his daughter should never marry a beggarly musician, that he would hardly consider a prince good enough for her! So he turned me out of the house, refusing even to let me take my own few possessions with me, my stepmother going so far as to tear off my finger a little ring I always wore, as it had been my mother’s, but which she now gave to her own daughter. Thus was I cast out of my father’s house, and from the moment the door closed behind me I never saw his face again, nor ever heard a word more from him. It was as if I were really dead to him henceforth. But I did not grieve. It was by my husband’s side that I wandered forth, happy for the first time in my life, in the consciousness of our mutual affection.

"The ten years that followed were years of happiness indeed, of such happiness as it is rarely given to mortals to know on earth. I lived for my husband alone, entirely wrapt up in him. I watched every change in his countenance, I studied his every mood, and had so thoroughly identified myself with him that my own brain was on the verge of becoming affected too, when his began to give way. I did not understand at first that there was anything the matter with him, and continued to take pride as ever in following and participating in every phase through which his mind passed. But that mind was darkening, although I knew it not. His fits of melancholy grew more frequent and of longer duration, as though a baleful shadow had fallen across his soul. One night he suddenly awakened me, begging me to get up, to leave him, to stay no longer in the room. Astonished and alarmed, but accustomed to obey his lightest wish in all things, I complied with the strange request. Next day he told me that it was his fears for me, for my safety, which had induced him to send me from him. ‘I feared lest I should hurt you!’ he groaned. For he felt that he was gradually losing all control over his own actions, that something outside himself was continually urging him to violence against those whom he loved best in the world. Musical phantasies mixed themselves with the rest. Thus he was for ever imagining that he heard sounds, sometimes just one note of music perpetually repeated, and then again the tones would be modulated, and vary, and combine and weave themselves into melody! And these snatches of melody he still noted down. But worse was at hand, for the day soon came, the terrible day, which put an end to all my earthly happiness, and after which it was no longer possible to conceal the truth from myself and others. My dear, unfortunate husband had managed to steal out of the house unperceived, and had attempted to drown himself in the Rhine! He was saved, but I was not allowed to see him again. It was said that it would be dangerous for him, for both of us. But he sent me a most touching message, begging me to forgive him the pain which he knew he must have caused me, and explaining how it was that he could not have acted otherwise—he felt that it was the only means of saving us both much